My heart leaps, and I’m nodding before I even register that I am. “Yes! Yes of course, yes. But you never told me why you’re not there now.”
Eric closes his eyes. “My dad is sick.”
“What?” I gasp.
He nods. “Cancer. He didn’t want anyone to know. The prognosis is good, but the treatment kept him from doing his normal camp thing, and my mom is taking care of him. So they asked me to take it on.”
“Oh my god, Eric I’m so sorry.”
He smiles thinly. “It’s okay. He’s in good spirits and the treatment seems to be working. But I couldn’t say no to that. And as terrible as the reason is, I am very, very glad that it brought me here.”
“Me too.”
He glances out the windows. “We should get back for the generator,” he says, pulling out of me and helping me fix my clothes and fixing his own. “But there’s one more thing that I want to ask you.”
“Sure.”
“I will take care of the arrangements, but I want you to move into my cabin.” He cups my face and puts his forehead against mine. “I don’t think I can survive another night when you’re not in my bed.”
“Yes,” I say immediately. “I think that we’ve both waited long enough for that.”
The kiss he gives me for that is almost enough to make me pull him back down and tell him to fuck me again. But he’s right, we need to fix the generator, and a couple counselors are waiting in the parking lot when we get back. “You two okay? We were about to send out a search party.”
Eric laughs. “Rain slowed us down, but we got what we needed. Should be up and running soon enough.”
I lock the car and follow along to help him. I feel settled and happy, but there’s one more thing that I’m going to have to face, and I have no idea how to do it. What the hell am I going to do about Leena, now that I know everything?
25
Persephone
Present
When I wake up and stretch in my brand-new bed in the director’s cabin—our bed—and am alone, there’s a sense of déjà vu. But this time I know why I’m alone. Because Eric is already up and about, doing the rounds for the camp. I’m taking the day off from counselor duties, and Mabel was more than happy take over my responsibilities for the day. I’m not exactly sure what Eric said to her, but she was beaming.
When I turn over, my hand brushes something hard, and I sit up, finding a gift on Eric’s side of the bed. Which brings another wave of memories. I’m sure that the significance is not lost on him either. It’s a notebook. Not like the ones I had before. This one is much nicer. It’s leather, blue gilded with gold and thick, creamy paper that makes me want to write everything and keep it perfect all at once.
When I see him, I am going to pounce on that man. Last night, we had so much sex that I thought I would be set for the next few days. One look at this present tells me that I’m wrong.
I toss on comfortable clothes and grab a pen, because I have a plan, and I want to get a move on it. I’m going back to the waterfall. I don’t want to leave a bad taste in my memories there, and so I make my way down that trail and perch on the rock, new book in hand.
And for the first time in forever, the words flow smoothly. I write about love, and about the waterfall and the strangeness of returning to a place after a long time. And the beauty of hope in the darkness. Of dreams and everything more.
I write until my hand starts to cramp and my stomach grumbles in hunger. It’s time for lunch anyway. Maybe Eric will be there. We haven’t talked about whether we’ll be making our relationship public to the rest of the camp, but we need to talk about it. Now that he’s mine—really and truly mine—I don’t want to be stopped from holding hands or kissing him. Though I don’t plan on dragging him out to fuck under the dock again.
Making my way back to the mess hall, I hear a long sound of a car pulling into the parking lot. Nearly skidding. That’s weird. We aren’t expecting any deliveries or visitors today. I step around a few trees into the parking lot and find a sleek black Mercedes parked haphazardly in front of the trail. And a blonde woman gets out of the car.
My stomach drops through the ground. It’s Leena.
“Seph! Hey! Man, this is a fucking trip, isn’t it? It looks exactly the way I remember it.” Her smile is huge, and I remember how that smile used to make me feel warm and safe. But now, knowing what I know, I have to wonder how much of our friendship was just Leena using me as a witness to her life.
Things started to fall into place when Eric told me everything. The lack of concern or checking in about my life. The way she brushed off my problems to focus on hers. The fact that she always promised to help me with publishing but never seemed to follow through. I had always justified it somehow. She had bigger problems, bigger concerns, she was busy. But I think that this is just who she is.
And now that I’ve seen it, it’s all that’s visible.
That same smile now makes me cringe.
“Leena,” I say, trying to keep my voice neutral. “What are you doing here?”
She grins maniacally. “I was texting Eric and he didn’t answer, so I decided to stop by. I want to see the tramp he’s fucking and show him how much better it could be. I think he needs a little reminder of what he’s missing.”
She brushes past me down the path, and I follow. I’m not letting her out of my sight. Just then Eric comes around the corner of the mess hall and sees me. He starts to wave and then sees Leena, and I’ve never seen him look like that. Suddenly pale, like devastation and shock and horror. I never want to see that look on his face again.
I put myself between her and him. “Now that you’re here, do you want to see our old cabin? I think our names are still carved where we left them.”
The look on her face speaks of bugs that need to be crushed. “I’ll pass, thanks.”
“What do you mean that you just wanted to stop by? I thought that you were in Miami?”
She doesn’t answer me, practically shoving me out of her way to stomp toward Eric. “Hi, asshole.”
He’s still frozen, but he manages to speak. “Leena.”
“Listen,” she says, “this is what happens when you ignore somebody like me. I’m the best thing that ever fucking happened to you, and I don’t care what you say, you’ll never be done with me. When I call, you answer. When I dare to send you a sexy photograph, you say ‘Thank you, Leena, for sharing your beauty with me.’”
As she speaks, I have no idea how I called this person my best friend. There’s nothing but poison in her words and in her tone, and there are people gathering now. Leena isn’t quiet, and the campers gathered for lunch are spilling out of the mess hall, drawn by the noise.
“You are a worthless, spineless, piece of shit who doesn’t know how to treat a woman. Show me the person you’ve been fucking around with so I can revel in how low you’ve sunk. I dare you.”
I look at the faces of the campers, and I find them to be troubled and confused. Everybody here loves Eric, and the fact that he’s being yelled at like this isn’t good for them to see or hear. Especially when it’s not remotely true. After the bonfire he’s their hero. That image is evaporating by the second.